Almost Perfect

Miffle Lane was the perfect neighborhood, or so it seemed because no one could
find anything wrong with it. There were exactly 40 Neohomes, 20 on each side of
the road. Each Neohome had a neatly trimmed lawn, and a spacious backyard with
a pool. It was rumored that each house on the street was worth at least 2 million
neopoints. Not only were the homes perfect, so were the people. Each house had
one owner with four pets. Each pet was perfectly groomed and painted a rare color.
There was no crime, beggars, poverty at all at Miffle Lane, in fact if truth be
told, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Well so it happened within the perfect neighborhood was a committee of residents
who took every possible measure to keep the neighborhood desirable, for example
they would tell that neighbor that painting the whole house bright pink was
not a good idea, and keeping all trash off the streets. It just so happened
that the head of that committee was a young lady named Celia, who had become
successful in the stock market. She had four of the brightest and strongest
pets, Milo, the baby Grarrl, Diana, the Faerie Usul, Cherry, the Island Eyrie,
and Simon, the Darigan Zafara. They were all a perfect family who lived in harmony
for years until one day Celia had to go for a business trip to Faerieland.

“I’m sorry guys, just showed up so unexpectedly,” Celia apologized while she
was packing that afternoon, “Oh when she come?”

“Who?” Milo inquired as he folded Celia’s socks.

“The sitter, she said she would be here before I left,” Celia eagerly glanced
up at the clock.

“Oh not Ms. Phina again,” Cherry sighed, “she was so strict.”

“No it’s not Ms. Phina, it’s my sister,” Celia grabbed more clothes and started
stuffing them into her suitcase.

“You have a sister!” all in pets stared at her in awe.

“Well, um, yes. I showed you a picture, didn’t I?” Celia handed over a picture
in a frame that stood on her dresser. It showed her standing next to a skinny
girl with black, wavy hair.

“We always thought that was a friend,” Diana said, “You two look nothing like
each other.”

“Yes well, that’s a good thing isn’t it? Siblings always hate it when people
compare them to one another, ah she must be here!” Celia sighed with a relief
as the doorbell rang.

All five of them rushed downstairs, and opened the door. There stood the girl
in the picture, except she had gained some weight, and her hair was wavier than
anything. She wore old, worn-out jeans, with a skirt over them, and an “I love
Sloth” T-shirt. Even more, she wore a green polka-dot hat on her head.

“Sis!” the girl threw her arms around Celia, messing up Celia’s perfect bun.

“Hello Stella,” Celia said quite ram shackled, “these are my…”

But before she could say anything, Stella ran forward and pinched Milo’s cheeks.

“And wow, you look tough! Bet you’re great at the battledome!” Stella shook
hands with Simon.

“Um, no, I don’t battle. I prefer to write poetry,” Simon said in a serious
tone.

“He he! A Darigan pet who writes poetry,” Stella giggled rudely.

“Um, well Stella now you know everybody. These guys will show you to a room.
Now I have to go, bye all!” Celia waved a hand, picked up her suitcase, and
walked outside.

The pets gave their owner a look to their owner as if begging her not to leave
them. Then Cherry and Diana carried the suitcases upstairs to a guest room,
all the while Stella let out long whistles and commented on how everything was
all pretty, and shiny, and looked expensive.

“Well here’s the room” Milo opened the door, revealing a grand guest room,
with a bathroom and a king-sized bed, which included a silk canopy.

“Wow! This is a room is made for royalty!” Stella ran in and jumped on the
bed, “Oh, it’s comfy!”

“Well, we’ll let you unpack,” Diana said dropping the last suitcase, “Lunch
is in exactly 23 minutes.”

“Exactly in 23 minutes, eh? What has Celia got you all timed?” Stella said
amusedly.

“It’s just a custom, breakfast is served at 8am, lunch is served at 12:30 pm,
tea is at 3 pm, and dinner is at 6 pm,” Diana said coolly.

“Yeah, but Celia did come with the idea, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but we don’t mind at all.”

“Sheesh, that girl always had everything timed, bet she even has specific times
to use the restroom!” Stella giggled.

“Yes, well see you then,” Diana left the room.

****

“What is this?” Stella asked incredulously prodding her food with the wrong
fork.

Later when Stella left for the pool, the pets began discussing their temporary
owner while they cleaned up the table.

“She is ten times worse than Ms. Phina!” Diana exclaimed.

“Tell me about it, did you see her table manners!” Milo said angrily picking
up his plate.

“No wonder Celia didn’t tell us she had a sister, man if had a sister like,
I wouldn’t want anyone to know,” Simon exclaimed.

****

All the pets agreed it would be the worst week ever. And indeed things didn’t
get better. Stella managed to ruin half the kitchen when she was trying to cook
a ‘surprise’. And she also managed to embarrass everyone at a tea party in the
neighbor’s house by belching loudly, and putting her feet on that table. Finally
it was Saturday, nearly the last day they would have to spend with Stella, but
the pets unfortunately, had enough.

“Why couldn’t we have stayed at the Neolodge?” Milo said miserably and he pulled
out pink ribbons Stella had put on him.

“I don’t know. Did you see how she embarrassed us at Ms. Trista’s tea party,
we’re going to be the laughing stock!” Diana said sadly.

“Not if I can help it, I’m leaving!” Cherry said angrily.

“Leaving, where?” Simon asked.

“Anywhere, I can fly wherever I want to. I can’t stand another day with that
mad girl!” Cherry heaved a small knapsack on her back.

The pets set off when Stella finally fell asleep after listening to rock music
on full volume for an hour. Diana suggested they got through the woods, where
they probably won’t get spotted, and all agreed. The woods were thick and hard
to navigate through especially in the night. They all decided to stop soon enough
and take a rest in front of a large tree.

“Man, these woods are something, we should’ve just flown,” Cherry sighed.

“Well we would have been seen then, and we’re trying to run away, we don’t
want o be seen, especially since we’re so close to the neighborhood,” Diana
said taking a big gulp of water.

“This is silly, we should have flown, now we’re too deep in the forest to fly
over, look how thick these trees are,” Milo massaged his feet.

“Hey, you hear something?” Diana tilted her head forward.

“Yeah, its that tree creaking, it’s going to fall over!” Simon pointed to the
large tree, which was tilting over.

“RUN!” Cherry yelled.

Simon, Cherry, and Diana were ably to move out of the way, but unfortunately
Milo tripped over a rock, and the other pets watch mortified as they were helplessly
going to watch their baby brother be trampled by the tree.

“Watch out!” Stella jumped out of nowhere, and grabbed Milo before the tree
flattened him, unfortunately the tree toppled over her leg, and she gave a loud
yell.

“Aunt Stella!” Milo cried.

“Hurry, we have to try to lift this thing of her!” Cherry yelled as she and
the other pets heaved with all their might to lift the tree long enough so that
Stella could remove her leg.

“Aunt, what were you doing here?” Diana asked after they successfully got Stella’s
leg out from under the tree and were now loading her up to Cherry’s back, who
would take her to the hospital.

“Oh I went to go check on you guys in the night, and saw you were all gone,
so I went outside and saw footprints that might have belonged to you people.
So I followed you guys here, and saw that Milo was about to get squished, so
I got him outta there.”

“Oh Aunt Stella, we’re sorry it was all our fault,” Milo said miserably, “We
decided to run away.”

“Nah, guess its my fault, after all never babysat rich pets before, probably
was not used to it, Celia seemed desperate to find a sitter, and I decided it
would be polite since I’m her sister to help her out. After all she got me out
of tough jams when we were kids,” Stella sighed.

“No, it’s not your fault, at all,” Simon, said grimly.

****

They were able to get Stella to the hospital, and the doctor fixed her up,
and said all she had was a broken leg and would get better soon.

“I guess not everyone can be the perfect babysitter, eh?” Stella chuckled as
the pets brought her back home and laid her on a bed.

A Day NOT to Remember!Candy was lounging about on the grass, Eylora was upstairs having a temper tantrum, also an ailment of the uncomfortable hot weather, and Jenniola was out somewhere, where she was no one knew.